We love this book and it’s no-nonsense approach to purpose and life. It goes perfectly with a month on figuring out your purpose.

Summary notes:

Self help fixates us on what we lack (just like we speak of in CWC1 about Affirmations).

Alan Watt’s backwards law: The desire for more positive experiences is itself a negative experience. And paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is in itself a positive experience.

Everything worthwhile is won through surmounting the associated negative experience. The avoidance of this is a form of suffering.

Choose what matters to you according to your values.

Choose what to care about. And what to let go of.

If you don’t care about something, your brain will invent problems.

Care less about what others think, adversity, embarrassing yourself.

Care more about the important things (family, friends…)

Rules:

1. Be comfortable with being different

2. Care more about something than the adversity

3. You are always choosing (Not choosing is still choosing)

We are wired to be dissatisfied- it keeps us striving. We are wired for pain. It helps us to pay attention.

Negative emotions tell us to take action, positive emotions are the reward for doing so.

Emotions are just suggestions.

Choose your struggle (and make it something you enjoy)- the joy of the journey.

Your self worth is how you feel about the negative parts of yourself.

Your problems are not privileged. You are not special. Your life might be mostly mundane and there is no need to make it “amazing” all the time. Let go of that pressure. 

The more problem free our lives become, the more entitled we feel for them to get even better.

Choose what you want to suffer for. Instead of asking, “How do I stop suffering?” Consider what is the purpose of the suffering. 

Values determine the nature of our problems, and therefore the quality of our lives.

When things suck, admit it (instead of pretending to be “positive” all the time).

Freud: “One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”

Prioritizing values is just choosing better things to care about.

The difference between a problem being painful or powerful is the sense that we chose it. (Power vs victimised).

We choose how we respond.

Being obsessed with being right stops us from living life.

Certainty is the enemy of growth- search instead for doubt as this is how we grow. The possibility of being wrong gives at the opportunity for growth.

The human mind can believe a lot of BS as real. The brain is imperfect.

All of our beliefs are wrong.

Our brain is designed to be efficient, not accurate.

Embrace uncertainty- it’s where growth happens.

If something threatens your identity you will avoid it.

Think on this:

1. What if I’m wrong

2. What would that mean if I am wrong?

3. Would being wrong be better or worse for me/others?

If it feels like you vs the world, it’s probably just you vs yourself.

Pain is part of the process, and in fact people often report that they are better people because of the pain. (eg WW2 survivors, cancer survivors).

We can only be truly successful at something we are willing to fail at.

Fear, anxiety and sadness are not necessarily undesirable or unhelpful- they are often representative of the necessary pain of psychological growth. 

Inspiration>Motivation>Action>Inspiration is a loop… So it doesn’t matter where you begin (Hint: begin with action if you lack motivation).

The way to achieve meaning is to reject/narrow alternatives- a narrowing of freedom. A commitment to one person/place/belief.

Commitment: freedom from distractions, hones attention and focus to what you really want.

We need to reject/say no to some things to stand for something. We have to care about something in order to value something (which means rejecting it’s opposite). We are defined by what we choose to reject.

Relationships are healthy when we have boundaries to take responsibility for our own problems and values and don’t try to either solve everything, or be saved from everything. 

You can’t determine how another person feels.

Mark Twain, “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

What is your legacy?

This is the only truly important question in our life. 

We are all going to die so there is nothing to be afraid of. The more we know that, the brighter life becomes.